Sadly, this sort of sittuation is happening all over Usenet.  A few ogres
show up and start silly arguments and before long, there's very little in
the way of "on-topic" post's.  I'm a DeadHead, (Grateful Dead fan to the
non-initiated ;-) and I just *UN*-Subscribed to rec.music.gdead because
it's so aggrivating trying to sift thrugh all the HATE messages and
political
post's to find anything to do with the Grateful Dead.  DeadHeads are usually
supposed to be easy going, cheerful and peaceful people but I've seen death
metal and kkk web sites more cheerful than rec.music.gdead.   Even the
"on-Topic" threads turn to crap if they lasts longer than 10 or so post's
because someone just has to jump in with an insult or hatefull wizecrack
if any little thing that's being said doesn't meet with some ogre's
approval.

Even GOODWIN could learn a thing or two by reading in rec.music.gdead.
Most post's turn to crap LONG before anyone envokes goodwin's law
by mentioning Hitler or the Nazi's.

                                    Peace,
                                            Mark

 Unfortunately there are a lot of very silly people out there.  There
is no effective means of controlling such people at the moment so you
will always get a fair sized number of really useless posts.

 However, I see very few, so perhaps you might consider what I do.

 First, get a decent newsreader.  That does not mean Outlook Express or
Outlook, which are mailreaders, or Internet Explorer or Netscape, which
are browsers.  While you can read news with any of those, it is much
easier with a newsreader.

 Second, use the killfiles freely.  Once someone posts asking whether
your cat would like to have sex with your neighbour's goat, take the
trouble to killfile him and you will never see his muck again.  All
decent newsreaders make it easy to put people in killfiles.

 Third, use killfiles on subjects.  I loathe continuous whining about
declawing [illegal in England so not a problem here] and whether cats
should be indoor/outdoor or not [again, geographical considerations are
relevant].  So if a post has a subject containing 'indoor/outdoor' or
'declaw' or 'penis' or 'Britney' or various other things I never see it.

 Fourth, kill threads freely.  The moment you do not like the contents
of a post, and feel you want to read no more of this particular thread,
then you kill the thread.  Now you download no more posts in this
thread.  All decent newsreaders make it easy to kill threads: if yours
does not [or even worse, if your reader does not even put posts in
threads] then you need a new newsreader.

 Fifth, there are several newsgroups on cats, and this is one of the
smallest.  So if you want more posts on cats to read, consider reading
one of the other newsgroups.  There is a list of newsgroups at

       http://blakjak.com/cat_news.htm